PhD Psychology: Decolonising the Psychology Research Methods Curriculum

最近的一些运动，比如#RhodesMustFall，#LiberateMyDegree和‘为什么我的课程是白色的？’敦促采取集体行动，将知识从殖民遗产中解放出来。大学应该对通过不平衡的、单一的文化主义和以美国-欧洲为中心的课程未能代表全球多数人负责(Bird&Pitman，2019年)。殖民课程剥夺了学习者对他们使用和传播的学术知识的批判性反思和上下文敏感性(Castell等人，2018年)。此外，它还创建了一个学院，将西方研究和研究人员视为可靠知识的主要创造者，而忽略了他们的非西方同行(Barnes&Siswana，2018；ReidPath&Alltey，2019)。以美欧为中心的心理学知识以普遍主义和科学中立的名义忽视不公正是有罪的(Barnes，2018)。在心理学中，对西方知识的选择性强调使心理学知识不能代表全球背景(Adams等人，2015)。英国心理协会和美国心理协会等专业机构和大学试图通过使阅读清单多样化以包括多种声音来取消课程设置(BPS，2020；Bronstein&Quina，2003)。然而，当非西方学术(少数除外)缺乏全球知名度和接受度，以及对非西方研究的负面看法将其排除在教育者和学习者的范围之外时，这种努力几乎没有效果(Barnes&Siswana，2018；Castell等人，2018；Mitchell，2020；Phiri，2018)。这一挑战看起来可能是全球性的；迫使非西方学者通过克隆、模仿和顺应来追赶西方；而不批判性地反思他们所使用的主流知识的社会、文化和历史背景(Helland&Lindgren，2016)。目前的策略取得的成功有限，因为它们未能对阻碍有意义的、全面的去殖民化的因素(如可见性、偏见问题)进行全面评估。研究方法(RM)构成了心理学课程的支柱，并通过实例进行最有效的教学。例子提供了一个吸引学生参与的“钩子”，他们因此在学习心理学的同时也学到了一些有趣的心理学知识。然而，殖民课程阻碍学习者理解为什么主导方法可能与当地不兼容，因为土著替代方案在主流RM课程中找不到位置(Barnes，2018；Papoutsaki，2007)。因此，赋予教育者和学习者工具来欣赏心理学RM的多样性(例如，通过能够根据在非西方国家收集和发布的公开数据搜索和定位社会心理学中不重要的卡方检验的例子)，将提供另一种思维方式，并朝着去殖民化的课程迭代。真正的去殖民化努力需要的战略不仅仅是阅读清单的多样化。这个项目的目的是探索当前的障碍，并设计出潜在的解决方案，以实现RM课程的去殖民化。通过探索性的顺序混合方法研究，拟议的项目旨在：(A)通过确定阻止心理学RM去殖民化的障碍来推进去殖民化努力；(B)调查解决全球对非西方研究的可见性需求的方法；以及(C)制定基于证据的战略，以支持更广泛的、跨学科的全球努力，以使英国的心理学RM课程去殖民化。这项研究将有助于英国大学提供全面、全面和全球教育的伦理和教育优先事项。

Recent movements such as #RhodesMustFall, #LiberateMyDegree and 'why is my curriculum white?' have urged collective action to liberate knowledge from its colonial legacy. Universities should be held accountable for under-representing the global majority through a lopsided, mono-culturist and US-Eurocentric curriculum (Bird & Pitman, 2019). The colonised curriculum deprives learners from being critically reflexive and contextually sensitive to the scholarship they use and disseminate (Castell et al., 2018). Additionally, it creates an academy that considers western research and researchers as primary generators of reliable knowledge, while disregarding their non-western equivalents (Barnes & Siswana, 2018; Reidpath & Allotey, 2019). Predominately US-Eurocentric psychological knowledge is guilty of ignoring injustices in the name of universalistic notions and scientific neutrality (Barnes, 2018). Within psychology, selective emphasis on western knowledge makes psychological knowledge unrepresentative of the global context (Adams et al., 2015). Professional bodies such as the British Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association, and universities have attempted to decolonise curriculum by diversifying reading lists to include multiple voices (BPS, 2020; Bronstein & Quina, 2003). However, such efforts have little effect when non-western scholarship (barring a few) lacks global visibility and acceptance, and when negative perceptions for non-western research keeps it outside the purview of educators and learners (Barnes & Siswana, 2018; Castell et al., 2018; Mitchell, 2020; Phiri, 2018). This challenge could plausibly be global; compelling non-western scholars to catch-up with the west by cloning, imitating and conforming; and without critically reflecting on the social, cultural and historical context of the mainstream knowledge they use (Helland & Lindgren, 2016). Present strategies have had limited success because they fail comprehensive evaluation of factors (like visibility, bias issues) obstructing meaningful, well-rounded decolonisation.Research methods (RM) form the backbone of psychology curricula and are most effectively taught using examples. Examples provide a 'hook' to engage students, who consequently learn something of interest about psychology whilst also learning about psychological RM. However, colonised curricula prevent learners from understanding why dominant methodologies might be locally incompatible since indigenous alternatives do not find place in mainstream RM curricula (Barnes, 2018; Papoutsaki, 2007). Therefore, empowering educators and learners with tools to appreciate diversity in psychology RM (e.g., by being able to search and locate an example of a non-significant chi-square test in social psychology based on open data collected and published in a non-western country), would offer alternate ways of thinking and iterate toward a decolonised curriculum. Genuine decolonising efforts requires strategies that go beyond mere diversification of reading lists. The aim of this projects is to explore current barriers and devise potential solutions to decolonising the RM curriculum. Through exploratory sequential mixed methods research, the proposed project aims to (a) advance decolonisation efforts by identifying barriers preventing psychology RM from decolonising (b) investigate ways to address the global visibility need for non-western research, and (c) develop an evidence-based strategy to support broader, discipline-wide global efforts to decolonise psychology RM curriculum in the UK. This research would contribute toward the ethical and educational priority of UK universities to provide comprehensive, holistic and global education.